Another bluddy train strike, then. 

 
Decimalisation brought an end to many a child’s hobby.  I used to enjoy collecting coins with monarchs’ heads going back to Queen Victoria.  Of course all the new coins were solely Queen Elizabeth II.  It is only now we are starting to see a second monarch’s image slowly appearing in our change. 

 
How things have changed / improved since those days, eh? 

 

It made me think of the Battle of the Somme, frankly. 

CfN. 

 
My paternal great grandmother (who had remarkable facial hair, which rather spooked me ) had a tradition of sending me a five-shilling postal order on my birthdays. That would have been in the 1960s. 

 
Another update, from the BBC:

 

I stand corrected! The half crown ceased to be legal tender on 1st Jan 1970, over a year before decimalisation.


I too used to get half a crown pocket money from my Gran, but I don’t remember being similarly swizzled!

The florin was part of an earlier abortive attempt at decimalisation, which led to the two coins with similar values - 2/- and 2/6 - coexisting. All a bit silly really, but fun.

 
Probably said before, but my largest saving was possibly reducing a £137 fare to £37.

Split ticketing is now a well-known technique, but there are others that can sometimes be useful:

• Buying a ticket for a longer journey (where break-of-journey ticket conditions allow starting or stopping at an intermediate station)
• Buying a London Travelcard that you don't intend to use, instead of a ticket to London Terminals

The opportunities are not as widespread as with split ticketing, but they do exist.

 
Hmm.

I am reminded of my excellent Economics teacher, Mr Stone, at my school in Plymouth over 50 years ago, who introduced us to the concept of 'supply and demand' on a simple two-dimensional chart drawn on the blackboard.

It seems to me that nothing much has changed since then. That is not, however, intended to detract from grahame's valid point.

CfN. 

 
Several posts subsequent to the above have now been split off (NOT deleted - we don't do that on this forum!) and moved to form a new topic of their own, at https://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=32623.0

They relate particularly to the decimalisation of the UK currency in February 1971, rather than split ticketing: hence their move.

CfN.

 

Let's not forget that Jews are not the only target of hate campaigns.


And through various media channels, some people are deliberately stirring up trouble.


We may come from a different political spectrum (sometimes we agree though), but I would miss your input on whatever subject. It's only through polite conversation that we on this group can improve understanding.

[/quote]

 

Not intended to be "nasty", just expressing an opinion based on my own observation, and the experience of a number of Jewish friends who, especially living in London, feel somewhat as if they're walking around with a target on their back, and in some cases are hiding their identity.

Politicians, who should know better, are in many cases making it worse.

I'll say no more on the subject in order to avoid anyone taking offence.

Shalom

 

There's a conversation to be had about how much aviation the planet can take before it makes life difficult for humans - because of climate; because of direct impacts such as noise; and because it uses resources that might have more vital application elsewhere.

If it turns out the the answer is "not as much as we are forecast to travel by plane" then there's a follow-up question about what to do about it. There are some awkward trade-offs and value problems involved.

 
Thank you, grahame.

Perhaps we could get some way back to the original topic and discuss ways of promoting ways of mitigating environmental damage that would be acceptable across a range of political views?

 
From me ... a while ago ...


Please, gentlemen, let's not stray too far.   It feels like the world is getting nastier - or it could just be that I am getting older - but let's not follow that regrettable path here on the Coffee Shop.   

 

Scottish B&B person who had had a portmanteau career before running a B&B business that having husbanded its reputation had grown along with the old stationmaster's house there - and now also included a freestanding holiday home constructed in part on ground that he'd cleared by removing a scoop into the long-abandoned railway embankment that bordered his land. He indicated that yes, the booking sites took a substantial bite out of the transaction, and for the holiday cottage this was 22%.

 
It was the roof of Southall station and was struck by 1A23.

 

Amazing how many maps used on accommodation / booking sites don't have a scale bar.

 

I avoid booking.com for probably similar reasons (reinforced by its irritating presence on the National Rail journey planner).

Here, search engine algorithms are not our friend, as the "native" website of the B&B can be well down the list.

 

Yes, I have come across a number of dead links. One thing that irritates me is the large number of websites that, for want of a better term, seem to be parasitic; that is to say they appear to have scraped details from elsewhere and often offer to "check availability" for places that have long-since ceased to exist.



It was probably the early 90's when I used Tourist Info to obtain a long list of B&B in North Cornwall and worked my way through the telephone numbers until I found one that was suitable and had space. Although not the most streamlined of processes, it had the advantage of being, probably, a comprehensive list of accommodation - in one document.


Brings back memories. I stayed one night in Inverness. The proprietess didn't have space for the following night, so asked her neighbour.  I stayed with said neigbour several times over the years. She was a fantastic host and was there with tea and sandwiches to welcome me at about 02:30 after the Taunton-Inverness train* was delayed by 5 hours.

Still as a student, I booked into a B&B opposite Balloch station. When my friend and I arrived, the door was opened by a girl rather younger than us. She looked rather hesitantly at us - nobody else was in the house - but let us in. The same girl cooked breakfast the following morning, saying very little. We enjoyed the meal in what was rather smart surroundings and then went on our way.

* Yes there was a Taunton-Inverness train in those days (probably 1980s).

 

Indeed.  A lot of local feedback on that one.   With all the extra housing planned in the Melksham area and in town to the south - such as Trowbridge, Westbury and Warminster ... and with many of our roads already congested, just one step short of gridlock, freight and passenger issues, the future looks interesting.

Roll on the Bath and Wiltshire metro, with public transport providing a network at turn-up-and-go frequency, and capacity through the railway line to take all that freight that Heidi wants to shift over from the roads.

 

Southall I think

 
Plans for Melksham bypass (A350) dropped:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cxvgdegp3ry7o